Kisumu man in grief after losing wife, two children in fire accident

David Onyango, 30, had travelled to his Kanyapinde home in located in Kisumu County on Tuesday last week.

Onyango who is a welder working in Kisii town had gone to inspect a house he was putting up in the village, only to get distress calls on Wednesday, the following day, that his wife and two children had fallen victims of an inferno that consumed their house at Nubia Estate.

His wife, Carolyne Akinyi, 24, was rushed to Christa Marianne Hospital while her daughters Melody Akoth, 8, and Anne Atieno,4, were rushed to the Kisii County Hospital with severe burns where they were admitted for treatment.

The two children succumbed to injuries on the same day of admission while Akinyi died on Thursday night.

“I immediately travelled back to Kisii when I received the bad news finding my wife and our two children wreathing in pain in hospital. Unfortunately, our children passed away while receiving treatment on the same day with my wife dying the following day,” said Onyango.

The widower said that he managed to speak with his wife at her hospital bed where she informed him that she had woken up and gone to the toilet, and upon her return, she found their house on fire and went in to rescue their children but got burnt in the process.

Onyango said he faces the challenge of organising for the funeral of his wife and two daughters and also paying medical bills accrued in the two hospitals bearing in mind he had lost everything they owned in the fire.

Benson Oduor, the caretaker of the premises in which the ill-fated house was located described the incident as 'very sad.'

Oduor said that Kenya Power Company technical team visited the scene of the fire on the date of the accident but left without speaking to anyone.

The company is yet to give a report on whether the fire was caused by an electric fault.

Kenya Power South Nyanza Regional Manager Kennedy Ogalo could not be reached for comment yesterday as his phones were switched off.